Browsed byCategory: Lessons I’m Learning

I first met Pastor Ralph as a second grader when my mom started attending a new church in town Hope Chapel Kaneohe. Little did I know at the time, this nice man, who let us call him Ralph (not Pastor Ralph, not Uncle Ralph, just Ralph), would 20 years later become my friend and my boss. A few weeks ago, we said good-bye to him and his wife Pastor Ruby as they left Hawaii after 34 years of ministry in…

Like many others living in Hawaii, I was awoken by an emergency alert on my iPhone. Really, the only other time I get these alerts are for flash flood warnings, so the first thing I did was check outside to see if it was raining. Seeing another beautiful day in paradise, I checked my phone and saw this message: Not knowing exactly what to do, I jumped up and tried to find the remote control to turn on the TV….

A few weeks ago, I shared on Facebook that if people can’t really remember my name, 9 times out of 10, they mix it up with Steve (the other one being Todd). I guess because they’re both one syllable and they start with an s they’re easy to confuse (not sure about the Todd thing though). Just to be clear, I’m totally not judging as I have made many a name error in my life. Just this last week, I…

Well, not exactly today, but sometime around this time anyway. 20 years ago, I graduated from high school. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like 20 years has passed since I was in high school, but the numbers truly don’t lie. Actually, being that it took me almost 18 to get to that point, the first 18 seemed much longer than the last 20. I guess it is true that time speeds up the older you get. Heck, can you believe we’re…

About a month and a half ago, I started substitute teaching in a few private schools on Oahu. I have been averaging around one or two days a week and thus far, it’s been really fun. I enjoy being able to meet and teach students when their regular teacher is absent. Up until last week, I had been fortunate enough to teach subjects that I have, at a minimum, a basic understanding of: PE, hula, environmental science and physics. But…

How was your Thanksgiving? Our family had a great time in Waipahu celebrating with Keao’s family. This year, I was in charge of bringing the turkey so I decided to try a different recipe. Rather than do a wet brine, I tried a dry brine (although technically I heard it’s more accurately a salt-cure). I’m not going to lie, I was a little skeptical because I couldn’t imagine how a coating of salt and seasoning could make the turkey moist…